[The first public anniversary celebration of the landing of the Pilgrimsat Plymouth took place under the auspices of the "Old Colony Club," ofwhose formation an account may be found in the interesting little workof William S. Russell, Esq., entitled "Guide to Plymouth andRecollections of the Pilgrims."

This club was formed for general purposes of social intercourse, in1769; but its members determined, by a vote passed on Monday, the 18thof December, of that year, "to keep" Friday, the 22d, in commemorationof the landing of the fathers. A particular account of the simplefestivities of this first public celebration of the landing of thePilgrims will be found at page 220 of Mr. Russell's work.

The following year, the anniversary was celebrated much in the samemanner as in 1769, with the addition of a short address, pronounced"with modest and decent firmness, by a member of the club, EdwardWinslow, Jr., Esq.," being the first address ever delivered on thisoccasion.

In 1771, it was suggested by Rev. Chandler Robbins, pastor of the FirstChurch at Plymouth, in a letter addressed to the club, "whether it wouldnot be agreeable, for the entertainment and instruction of the risinggeneration on these anniversaries, to have a sermon in public, some partof the day, peculiarly adapted to the occasion." This recommendationprevailed, and an appropriate discourse was delivered the following yearby the Rev. Dr. Robbins.

In 1773 the Old Colony Club was dissolved, in consequence of theconflicting opinions of its members on the great political questionsthen agitated. Notwithstanding this event, the anniversary celebrationsof the 22d of December continued without interruption till 1780, whenthey were suspended. After an interval of fourteen years, a publicdiscourse was again delivered by the Rev. Dr. Robbins. Privatecelebrations took place the four following years, and from that timetill the year 1819, with one or two exceptions, the day was annuallycommemorated, and public addresses were delivered by distinguishedclergymen and laymen of Massachusetts.

In 1820 the "Pilgrim Society" was formed by the citizens of Plymouth andthe descendants of the Pilgrims in other places, desirous of uniting "tocommemorate the landing, and to honor the memory of the intrepid men whofirst set foot on Plymouth rock." The foundation of this society gave anew impulse to the anniversary celebrations of this great event. TheHon. Daniel Webster was requested to deliver the public address on the22d of December of that year, and the following discourse was pronouncedby him on the ever-memorable occasion. Great public expectation wasawakened by the fame of the orator; an immense concourse assembled atPlymouth to unite in the celebration; and it may be safely anticipated,that some portion of the powerful effect of the following address on theminds of those who were so fortunate as to hear it, will be perpetuatedby the press to the latest posterity.

From 1820 to the present day, with occasional interruptions, the 22d ofDecember has been celebrated by the Pilgrim Society. A list of all thoseby whom anniversary discourses have been delivered since the firstorganization of the Old Colony Club, in 1769, may be found in Mr.Russell's work.

Nor has the notice of the day been confined to New England. Publiccelebrations of the landing of the Pilgrims have been frequent in otherparts of the country, particularly in New York. The New England Societyof that city has rarely permitted the day to pass without appropriatehonors. Similar societies have been formed at Philadelphia, Charleston,S.C., and Cincinnati, and the day has been publicly commemorated inseveral other parts of the country.]

Let us rejoice that we behold this day. Let us be thankful that we havelived to see the bright and happy breaking of the auspicious morn, whichcommences the third century of the history of New England. Auspicious,indeed,--bringing a happiness beyond the common allotment of Providenceto men,--full of present joy, and gilding with bright beams the prospectof futurity, is the dawn that awakens us to the commemoration of thelanding of the Pilgrims.

Living at an epoch which naturally marks the progress of the history ofour native land, we have come hither to celebrate the great event withwhich that history commenced. For ever honored be this, the place of ourfathers' refuge! For ever remembered the day which saw them, weary anddistressed, broken in every thing but spirit, poor in all but faith andcourage, at last secure from the dangers of wintry seas, and impressingthis shore with the first footsteps of civilized man!

It is a noble faculty of our nature which enables us to connect ourthoughts, our sympathies, and our happiness with what is distant inplace or time; and, looking before and after, to hold communion at oncewith our ancestors and our posterity. Human and mortal although we are,we are nevertheless not mere insulated beings, without relation to thepast or the future. Neither the point of time, nor the spot of earth, inwhich we physically live, bounds our rational and intellectualenjoyments. We live in the past by a knowledge of its history; and inthe future, by hope and anticipation. By ascending to an associationwith our ancestors; by contemplating their example and studying theircharacter; by partaking their sentiments, and imbibing their spirit; byaccompanying them in their toils, by sympathizing in their sufferings,and rejoicing in their successes and their triumphs; we seem to belongto their age, and to mingle our own existence with theirs. We becometheir contemporaries, live the lives which they lived, endure what theyendured, and partake in the rewards which they enjoyed. And in likemanner, by running along the line of future time, by contemplating theprobable fortunes of those who are coming after us, by attemptingsomething which may promote their happiness, and leave some notdishonorable memorial of ourselves for their regard, when we shall sleepwith the fathers, we protract our own earthly being, and seem to crowdwhatever is future, as well as all that is past, into the narrow compassof our earthly existence. As it is not a vain and false, but an exaltedand religious imagination, which leads us to raise our thoughts from theorb, which, amidst this universe of worlds, the Creator has given us toinhabit, and to send them with something of the feeling which natureprompts, and teaches to be proper among children of the same EternalParent, to the contemplation of the myriads of fellow-beings with whichhis goodness has peopled the infinite of space; so neither is it falseor vain to consider ourselves as interested and connected with our wholerace, through all time; allied to our ancestors; allied to ourposterity; closely compacted on all sides with others; ourselves beingbut links in the great chain of being, which begins with the origin ofour race, runs onward through its successive generations, bindingtogether the past, the present, and the future, and terminating at last,with the consummation of all things earthly, at the throne of God.

There may be, and there often is, indeed, a regard for ancestry, whichnourishes only a weak pride; as there is also a care for posterity,which only disguises an habitual avarice, or hides the workings of a lowand grovelling vanity. But there is also a moral and philosophicalrespect for our ancestors, which elevates the character and improves theheart. Next to the sense of religious duty and moral feeling, I hardlyknow what should bear with stronger obligation on a liberal andenlightened mind, than a consciousness of alliance with excellence whichis departed; and a consciousness, too, that in its acts and conduct, andeven in its sentiments and thoughts, it may be actively operating on thehappiness of those who come after it. Poetry is found to have fewstronger conceptions, by which it would affect or overwhelm the mind,than those in which it presents the moving and speaking image of thedeparted dead to the senses of the living. This belongs to poetry, onlybecause it is congenial to our nature. Poetry is, in this respect, butthe handmaid of true philosophy and morality; it deals with us as humanbeings, naturally reverencing those whose visible connection with thisstate of existence is severed, and who may yet exercise we know not whatsympathy with ourselves; and when it carries us forward, also, and showsus the long continued result of all the good we do, in the prosperity ofthose who follow us, till it bears us from ourselves, and absorbs us inan intense interest for what shall happen to the generations after us,it speaks only in the language of our nature, and affects us withsentiments which belong to us as human beings.

Standing in this relation to our ancestors and our posterity, we areassembled on this memorable spot, to perform the duties which thatrelation and the present occasion impose upon us. We have come to thisRock, to record here our homage for our Pilgrim Fathers; our sympathy intheir sufferings; our gratitude for their labors; our admiration oftheir virtues; our veneration for their piety; and our attachment tothose principles of civil and religious liberty, which they encounteredthe dangers of the ocean, the storms of heaven, the violence of savages,disease, exile, and famine, to enjoy and to establish. And we wouldleave here, also, for the generations which are rising up rapidly tofill our places, some proof that we have endeavored to transmit thegreat inheritance unimpaired; that in our estimate of public principlesand private virtue, in our veneration of religion and piety, in ourdevotion to civil and religious liberty, in our regard for whateveradvances human knowledge or improves human happiness, we are notaltogether unworthy of our origin.

There is a local feeling connected with this occasion, too strong to beresisted; a sort of _genius of the place_, which inspires and awes us.We feel that we are on the spot where the first scene of our history waslaid; where the hearths and altars of New England were first placed;where Christianity, and civilization, and letters made their firstlodgement, in a vast extent of country, covered with a wilderness, andpeopled by roving barbarians. We are here, at the season of the year atwhich the event took place. The imagination irresistibly and rapidlydraws around us the principal features and the leading characters in theoriginal scene. We cast our eyes abroad on the ocean, and we see wherethe little bark, with the interesting group upon its deck, made its slowprogress to the shore. We look around us, and behold the hills andpromontories where the anxious eyes of our fathers first saw the placesof habitation and of rest. We feel the cold which benumbed, and listento the winds which pierced them. Beneath us is the Rock,[1] on which NewEngland received the feet of the Pilgrims. We seem even to behold them,as they struggle with the elements, and, with toilsome efforts, gain theshore. We listen to the chiefs in council; we see the unexampledexhibition of female fortitude and resignation; we hear the whisperingsof youthful impatience, and we see, what a painter of our own has alsorepresented by his pencil,[2] chilled and shivering childhood,houseless, but for a mother's arms, couchless, but for a mother'sbreast, till our own blood almost freezes. The mild dignity of Carverand of Bradford; the decisive and soldier-like air and manner ofStandish; the devout Brewster; the enterprising Allerton;[3] the generalfirmness and thoughtfulness of the whole band; their conscious joy fordangers escaped; their deep solicitude about dangers to come; theirtrust in Heaven; their high religious faith, full of confidence andanticipation; all of these seem to belong to this place, and to bepresent upon this occasion, to fill us with reverence and admiration.

The settlement of New England by the colony which landed here[4] on thetwenty-second[5] of December, sixteen hundred and twenty, although notthe first European establishment in what now constitutes the UnitedStates, was yet so peculiar in its causes and character, and has beenfollowed and must still be followed by such consequences, as to give ita high claim to lasting commemoration. On these causes and consequences,more than on its immediately attendant circumstances, its importance, asan historical event, depends. Great actions and striking occurrences,having excited a temporary admiration, often pass away and areforgotten, because they leave no lasting results, affecting theprosperity and happiness of communities. Such is frequently the fortuneof the most brilliant military achievements. Of the ten thousand battleswhich have been fought, of all the fields fertilized with carnage, ofthe banners which have been bathed in blood, of the warriors who havehoped that they had risen from the field of conquest to a glory asbright and as durable as the stars, how few that continue long tointerest mankind! The victory of yesterday is reversed by the defeat ofto-day; the star of military glory, rising like a meteor, like a meteorhas fallen; disgrace and disaster hang on the heels of conquest andrenown; victor and vanquished presently pass away to oblivion, and theworld goes on in its course, with the loss only of so many lives and somuch treasure.

But if this be frequently, or generally, the fortune of militaryachievements, it is not always so. There are enterprises, military aswell as civil, which sometimes check the current of events, give a newturn to human affairs, and transmit their consequences through ages. Wesee their importance in their results, and call them great, becausegreat things follow. There have been battles which have fixed the fateof nations. These come down to us in history with a solid and permanentinterest, not created by a display of glittering armor, the rush ofadverse battalions, the sinking and rising of pennons, the flight, thepursuit, and the victory; but by their effect in advancing or retardinghuman knowledge, in overthrowing or establishing despotism, in extendingor destroying human happiness. When the traveller pauses on the plain ofMarathon, what are the emotions which most strongly agitate his breast?What is that glorious recollection, which thrills through his frame, andsuffuses his eyes? Not, I imagine, that Grecian skill and Grecian valorwere here most signally displayed; but that Greece herself was saved. Itis because to this spot, and to the event which has rendered itimmortal, he refers all the succeeding glories of the republic. It isbecause, if that day had gone otherwise, Greece had perished. It isbecause he perceives that her philosophers and orators, her poets andpainters, her sculptors and architects, her governments and freeinstitutions, point backward to Marathon, and that their futureexistence seems to have been suspended on the contingency, whether thePersian or the Grecian banner should wave victorious in the beams ofthat day's setting sun. And, as his imagination kindles at theretrospect, he is transported back to the interesting moment; he countsthe fearful odds of the contending hosts; his interest for the resultoverwhelms him; he trembles, as if it were still uncertain, and seems todoubt whether he may consider Socrates and Plato, Demosthenes,Sophocles, and Phidias, as secure, yet, to himself and to the world.

"If we conquer," said the Athenian commander on the approach of thatdecisive day, "if we conquer, we shall make Athens the greatest city ofGreece."[6] A prophecy how well fulfilled! "If God prosper us," mighthave been the more appropriate language of our fathers, when they landedupon this Rock, "if God prosper us, we shall here begin a work whichshall last for ages; we shall plant here a new society, in theprinciples of the fullest liberty and the purest religion; we shallsubdue this wilderness which is before us; we shall fill this region ofthe great continent, which stretches almost from pole to pole, withcivilization and Christianity; the temples of the true God shall rise,where now ascends the smoke of idolatrous sacrifice; fields and gardens,the flowers of summer, and the waving and golden harvest of autumn,shall spread over a thousand hills, and stretch along a thousandvalleys, never yet, since the creation, reclaimed to the use ofcivilized man. We shall whiten this coast with the canvas of aprosperous commerce; we shall stud the long and winding shore with ahundred cities. That which we sow in weakness shall be raised instrength. From our sincere, but houseless worship, there shall springsplendid temples to record God's goodness; from the simplicity of oursocial union, there shall arise wise and politic constitutions ofgovernment, full of the liberty which we ourselves bring and breathe;from our zeal for learning, institutions shall spring which shallscatter the light of knowledge throughout the land, and, in time, payingback where they have borrowed, shall contribute their part to the greataggregate of human knowledge; and our descendants, through allgenerations, shall look back to this spot, and to this hour, withunabated affection and regard."

A brief remembrance of the causes which led to the settlement of thisplace; some account of the peculiarities and characteristic qualities ofthat settlement, as distinguished from other instances of colonization;a short notice of the progress of New England in the great interests ofsociety, during the century which is now elapsed; with a fewobservations on the principles upon which society and government areestablished in this country; comprise all that can be attempted, andmuch more than can be satisfactorily performed, on the present occasion.

Of the motives which influenced the first settlers to a voluntary exile,induced them to relinquish their native country, and to seek an asylumin this then unexplored wilderness, the first and principal, no doubt,were connected with religion. They sought to enjoy a higher degree ofreligious freedom, and what they esteemed a purer form of religiousworship, than was allowed to their choice, or presented to theirimitation, in the Old World. The love of religious liberty is a strongersentiment, when fully excited, than an attachment to civil or politicalfreedom. That freedom which the conscience demands, and which men feelbound by their hope of salvation to contend for, can hardly fail to beattained. Conscience, in the cause of religion and the worship of theDeity, prepares the mind to act and to suffer beyond almost all othercauses. It sometimes gives an impulse so irresistible, that no fettersof power or of opinion can withstand it. History instructs us that thislove of religious liberty, a compound sentiment in the breast of man,made up of the clearest sense of right and the highest conviction ofduty, is able to look the sternest despotism in the face, and, withmeans apparently most inadequate, to shake principalities and powers.There is a boldness, a spirit of daring, in religious reformers, not tobe measured by the general rules which control men's purposes andactions. If the hand of power be laid upon it, this only seems toaugment its force and its elasticity, and to cause its action to be moreformidable and violent. Human invention has devised nothing, humanpower has compassed nothing, that can forcibly restrain it, when itbreaks forth. Nothing can stop it, but to give way to it; nothing cancheck it, but indulgence. It loses its power only when it has gained itsobject. The principle of toleration, to which the world has come soslowly, is at once the most just and the most wise of all principles.Even when religious feeling takes a character of extravagance andenthusiasm, and seems to threaten the order of society and shake thecolumns of the social edifice, its principal danger is in its restraint.If it be allowed indulgence and expansion, like the elemental fires, itonly agitates, and perhaps purifies, the atmosphere; while its effortsto throw off restraint would burst the world asunder.

It is certain, that, although many of them were republicans inprinciple, we have no evidence that our New England ancestors would haveemigrated, as they did, from their own native country, would have becomewanderers in Europe, and finally would have undertaken the establishmentof a colony here, merely from their dislike of the political systems ofEurope. They fled not so much from the civil government, as from thehierarchy, and the laws which enforced conformity to the churchestablishment. Mr. Robinson had left England as early as 1608, onaccount of the persecutions for non-conformity, and had retired toHolland. He left England from no disappointed ambition in affairs ofstate, from no regrets at the want of preferment in the church, nor fromany motive of distinction or of gain. Uniformity in matters of religionwas pressed with such extreme rigor, that a voluntary exile seemed themost eligible mode of escaping from the penalties of non-compliance. Theaccession of Elizabeth had, it is true, quenched the fires ofSmithfield, and put an end to the easy acquisition of the crown ofmartyrdom. Her long reign had established the Reformation, buttoleration was a virtue beyond her conception, and beyond the age. Sheleft no example of it to her successor; and he was not of a characterwhich rendered a sentiment either so wise or so liberal would originatewith him. At the present period it seems incredible that the learned,accomplished, unassuming, and inoffensive Robinson should neither betolerated in his peaceable mode of worship in his own country, norsuffered quietly to depart from it. Yet such was the fact. He left hiscountry by stealth, that he might elsewhere enjoy those rights whichought to belong to men in all countries. The departure of the Pilgrimsfor Holland is deeply interesting, from its circumstances, and also asit marks the character of the times, independently of its connectionwith names now incorporated with the history of empire. The embarkationwas intended to be made in such a manner that it might escape the noticeof the officers of government. Great pains had been taken to secureboats, which should come undiscovered to the shore, and receive thefugitives; and frequent disappointments had been experienced in thisrespect.

At length the appointed time came, bringing with it unusual severity ofcold and rain. An unfrequented and barren heath, on the shores ofLincolnshire, was the selected spot, where the feet of the Pilgrims wereto tread, for the last time, the land of their fathers. The vessel whichwas to receive them did not come until the next day, and in the meantime the little band was collected, and men and women and children andbaggage were crowded together, in melancholy and distressed confusion.The sea was rough, and the women and children were already sick, fromtheir passage down the river to the place of embarkation on the sea. Atlength the wished-for boat silently and fearfully approaches the shore,and men and women and children, shaking with fear and with cold, as manyas the small vessel could bear, venture off on a dangerous sea.Immediately the advance of horses is heard from behind, armed menappear, and those not yet embarked are seized and taken into custody. Inthe hurry of the moment, the first parties had been sent on boardwithout any attempt to keep members of the same family together, and onaccount of the appearance of the horsemen, the boat never returned forthe residue. Those who had got away, and those who had not, were inequal distress. A storm, of great violence and long duration, arose atsea, which not only protracted the voyage, rendered distressing by thewant of all those accommodations which the interruption of theembarkation had occasioned, but also forced the vessel out of hercourse, and menaced immediate shipwreck; while those on shore, when theywere dismissed from the custody of the officers of justice, having nolonger homes or houses to retire to, and their friends and protectorsbeing already gone, became objects of necessary charity, as well as ofdeep commiseration.

As this scene passes before us, we can hardly forbear asking whetherthis be a band of malefactors and felons flying from justice. What aretheir crimes, that they hide themselves in darkness? To what punishmentare they exposed, that, to avoid it, men, and women, and children, thusencounter the surf of the North Sea and the terrors of a night storm?What induces this armed pursuit, and this arrest of fugitives, of allages and both sexes? Truth does not allow us to answer these inquiriesin a manner that does credit to the wisdom or the justice of the times.This was not the flight of guilt, but of virtue. It was an humble andpeaceable religion, flying from causeless oppression. It was conscience,attempting to escape from the arbitrary rule of the Stuarts. It wasRobinson and Brewster, leading off their little band from their nativesoil, at first to find shelter on the shore of the neighboringcontinent, but ultimately to come hither; and having surmounted alldifficulties and braved a thousand dangers, to find here a place ofrefuge and of rest. Thanks be to God, that this spot was honored as theasylum of religious liberty! May its standard, reared here, remain forever! May it rise up as high as heaven, till its banner shall fan theair of both continents, and wave as a glorious ensign of peace andsecurity to the nations!

The peculiar character, condition, and circumstances of the colonieswhich introduced civilization and an English race into New England,afford a most interesting and extensive topic of discussion. On these,much of our subsequent character and fortune has depended. Theirinfluence has essentially affected our whole history, through the twocenturies which have elapsed; and as they have become intimatelyconnected with government, laws, and property, as well as with ouropinions on the subjects of religion and civil liberty, that influenceis likely to continue to be felt through the centuries which shallsucceed. Emigration from one region to another, and the emission ofcolonies to people countries more or less distant from the residence ofthe parent stock, are common incidents in the history of mankind; but ithas not often, perhaps never, happened, that the establishment ofcolonies should be attempted under circumstances, however beset withpresent difficulties and dangers, yet so favorable to ultimate success,and so conducive to magnificent results, as those which attended thefirst settlements on this part of the American continent. In otherinstances, emigration has proceeded from a less exalted purpose, inperiods of less general intelligence, or more without plan and byaccident; or under circumstances, physical and moral, less favorable tothe expectation of laying a foundation for great public prosperity andfuture empire.

A great resemblance exists, obviously, between all the English coloniesestablished within the present limits of the United States; but theoccasion attracts our attention more immediately to those which tookpossession of New England, and the peculiarities of these furnish astrong contrast with most other instances of colonization.

Among the ancient nations, the Greeks, no doubt, sent forth from theirterritories the greatest number of colonies. So numerous, indeed, werethey, and so great the extent of space over which they were spread, thatthe parent country fondly and naturally persuaded herself, that bymeans of them she had laid a sure foundation for the universalcivilization of the world. These establishments, from obvious causes,were most numerous in places most contiguous; yet they were found on thecoasts of France, on the shores of the Euxine Sea, in Africa, and even,as is alleged, on the borders of India. These emigrations appear to havebeen sometimes voluntary and sometimes compulsory; arising from thespontaneous enterprise of individuals, or the order and regulation ofgovernment. It was a common opinion with ancient writers, that they wereundertaken in religious obedience to the commands of oracles, and it isprobable that impressions of this sort might have had more or lessinfluence; but it is probable, also, that on these occasions the oraclesdid not speak a language dissonant from the views and purposes of thestate.

Political science among the Greeks seems never to have extended to thecomprehension of a system, which should be adequate to the government ofa great nation upon principles of liberty. They were accustomed only tothe contemplation of small republics, and were led to consider anaugmented population as incompatible with free institutions. The desireof a remedy for this supposed evil, and the wish to establish marts fortrade, led the governments often to undertake the establishment ofcolonies as an affair of state expediency. Colonization and commerce,indeed, would naturally become objects of interest to an ingenious andenterprising people, inhabiting a territory closely circumscribed in itslimits, and in no small part mountainous and sterile; while the islandsof the adjacent seas, and the promontories and coasts of the neighboringcontinents, by their mere proximity, strongly solicited the excitedspirit of emigration. Such was this proximity, in many instances, thatthe new settlements appeared rather to be the mere extension ofpopulation over contiguous territory, than the establishment of distantcolonies. In proportion as they were near to the parent state, theywould be under its authority, and partake of its fortunes. The colony atMarseilles might perceive lightly, or not at all, the sway of Phocis;while the islands in the Aegean Sea could hardly attain to independenceof their Athenian origin. Many of these establishments took place at anearly age; and if there were defects in the governments of the parentstates, the colonists did not possess philosophy or experiencesufficient to correct such evils in their own institutions, even if theyhad not been, by other causes, deprived of the power. An immediatenecessity, connected with the support of life, was the main and directinducement to these undertakings, and there could hardly exist more thanthe hope of a successful imitation of institutions with which they werealready acquainted, and of holding an equality with their neighbors inthe course of improvement. The laws and customs, both political andmunicipal, as well as the religious worship of the parent city, weretransferred to the colony; and the parent city herself, with all such ofher colonies as were not too far remote for frequent intercourse andcommon sentiments, would appear like a family of cities, more or lessdependent, and more or less connected. We know how imperfect this systemwas, as a system of general politics, and what scope it gave to thosemutual dissensions and conflicts which proved so fatal to Greece.

But it is more pertinent to our present purpose to observe, that nothingexisted in the character of Grecian emigrations, or in the spirit andintelligence of the emigrants, likely to give a new and importantdirection to human affairs, or a new impulse to the human mind. Theirmotives were not high enough, their views were not sufficiently largeand prospective. They went not forth, like our ancestors, to erectsystems of more perfect civil liberty, or to enjoy a higher degree ofreligious freedom. Above all, there was nothing in the religion andlearning of the age, that could either inspire high purposes, or givethe ability to execute them. Whatever restraints on civil liberty, orwhatever abuses in religious worship, existed at the time of ourfathers' emigration, yet even then all was light in the moral and mentalworld, in comparison with its condition in most periods of the ancientstates. The settlement of a new continent, in an age of progressiveknowledge and improvement, could not but do more than merely enlarge thenatural boundaries of the habitable world. It could not but do much moreeven than extend commerce and increase wealth among the human race. Wesee how this event has acted, how it must have acted, and wonder onlywhy it did not act sooner, in the production of moral effects, on thestate of human knowledge, the general tone of human sentiments, and theprospects of human happiness. It gave to civilized man not only a newcontinent to be inhabited and cultivated, and new seas to be explored;but it gave him also a new range for his thoughts, new objects forcuriosity, and new excitements to knowledge and improvement.

Roman colonization resembled, far less than that of the Greeks, theoriginal settlements of this country. Power and dominion were theobjects of Rome, even in her colonial establishments. Her whole exterioraspect was for centuries hostile and terrific. She grasped at dominion,from India to Britain, and her measures of colonization partook of thecharacter of her general system. Her policy was military, because herobjects were power, ascendency, and subjugation. Detachments ofemigrants from Rome incorporated themselves with, and governed, theoriginal inhabitants of conquered countries. She sent citizens where shehad first sent soldiers; her law followed her sword. Her colonies were asort of military establishment; so many advanced posts in the career ofher dominion. A governor from Rome ruled the new colony with absolutesway, and often with unbounded rapacity. In Sicily, in Gaul, in Spain,and in Asia, the power of Rome prevailed, not nominally only, but reallyand effectually. Those who immediately exercised it were Roman; the toneand tendency of its administration, Roman. Rome herself continued to bethe heart and centre of the great system which she had established.Extortion and rapacity, finding a wide and often rich field of action inthe provinces, looked nevertheless to the banks of the Tiber, as thescene in which their ill-gotten treasures should be displayed; or, if aspirit of more honest acquisition prevailed, the object, nevertheless,was ultimate enjoyment in Rome itself. If our own history and our owntimes did not sufficiently expose the inherent and incurable evils ofprovincial government, we might see them portrayed, to our amazement, inthe desolated and ruined provinces of the Roman empire. We might hearthem, in a voice that terrifies us, in those strains of complaint andaccusation, which the advocates of the provinces poured forth in theRoman Forum:--"Quas res luxuries in flagitiis, crudelitas in suppliciis,avaritia in rapinis, superbia in contumeliis, efficere potuisset, easomnes sese pertulisse."

As was to be expected, the Roman Provinces partook of the fortunes, aswell as of the sentiments and general character, of the seat of empire.They lived together with her, they flourished with her, and fell withher. The branches were lopped away even before the vast and venerabletrunk itself fell prostrate to the earth. Nothing had proceeded from herwhich could support itself, and bear up the name of its origin, when herown sustaining arm should be enfeebled or withdrawn. It was not given toRome to see, either at her zenith or in her decline, a child of her own,distant, indeed, and independent of her control, yet speaking herlanguage and inheriting her blood, springing forward to a competitionwith her own power, and a comparison with her own great renown. She sawnot a vast region of the earth peopled from her stock, full of statesand political communities, improving upon the models of herinstitutions, and breathing in fuller measure the spirit which she hadbreathed in the best periods of her existence; enjoying and extendingher arts and her literature; rising rapidly from political childhood tomanly strength and independence; her offspring, yet now her equal;unconnected with the causes which might affect the duration of her ownpower and greatness; of common origin, but not linked to a common fate;giving ample pledge, that her name should not be forgotten, that herlanguage should not cease to be used among men; that whatsoever she haddone for human knowledge and human happiness should be treasured up andpreserved; that the record of her existence and her achievements shouldnot be obscured, although, in the inscrutable purposes of Providence, itmight be her destiny to fall from opulence and splendor; although thetime might come, when darkness should settle on all her hills; whenforeign or domestic violence should overturn her altars and her temples;when ignorance and despotism should fill the places where Laws, andArts, and Liberty had flourished; when the feet of barbarism shouldtrample on the tombs of her consuls, and the walls of her senate-houseand forum echo only to the voice of savage triumph. She saw not thisglorious vision, to inspire and fortify her against the possible decayor downfall of her power. Happy are they who in our day may behold it,if they shall contemplate it with the sentiments which it ought toinspire!

The New England Colonies differ quite as widely from the Asiaticestablishments of the modern European nations, as from the models of theancient states. The sole object of those establishments was originallytrade; although we have seen, in one of them, the anomaly of a meretrading company attaining a political character, disbursing revenues,and maintaining armies and fortresses, until it has extended its controlover seventy millions of people. Differing from these, and still morefrom the New England and North American Colonies, are the Europeansettlements in the West India Islands. It is not strange, that, whenmen's minds were turned to the settlement of America, different objectsshould be proposed by those who emigrated to the different regions of sovast a country. Climate, soil, and condition were not all equallyfavorable to all pursuits. In the West Indies, the purpose of those whowent thither was to engage in that species of agriculture, suited to thesoil and climate, which seems to bear more resemblance to commerce thanto the hard and plain tillage of New England. The great staples of thesecountries, being partly an agricultural and partly a manufacturedproduct, and not being of the necessaries of life, become the object ofcalculation, with respect to a profitable investment of capital, likeany other enterprise of trade or manufacture. The more especially, as,requiring, by necessity or habit, slave labor for their production, thecapital necessary to carry on the work of this production is veryconsiderable. The West Indies are resorted to, therefore, rather for theinvestment of capital than for the purpose of sustaining life bypersonal labor. Such as possess a considerable amount of capital, orsuch as choose to adventure in commercial speculations without capital,can alone be fitted to be emigrants to the islands. The agriculture ofthese regions, as before observed, is a sort of commerce; and it is aspecies of employment in which labor seems to form an inconsiderableingredient in the productive causes, since the portion of white labor isexceedingly small, and slave labor is rather more like profit on stockor capital than _labor_ properly so called. The individual whoundertakes an establishment of this kind takes into the account the costof the necessary number of slaves, in the same manner as he calculatesthe cost of the land. The uncertainty, too, of this species ofemployment, affords another ground of resemblance to commerce. Althoughgainful on the whole, and in a series of years, it is often verydisastrous for a single year, and, as the capital is not readilyinvested in other pursuits, bad crops or bad markets not only affect theprofits, but the capital itself. Hence the sudden depressions which takeplace in the value of such estates.

But the great and leading observation, relative to these establishments,remains to be made. It is, that the owners of the soil and of thecapital seldom consider themselves _at home_ in the colony. A verygreat portion of the soil itself is usually owned in the mother country;a still greater is mortgaged for capital obtained there; and, ingeneral, those who are to derive an interest from the products look tothe parent country as the place for enjoyment of their wealth. Thepopulation is therefore constantly fluctuating. Nobody comes but toreturn. A constant succession of owners, agents, and factors takesplace. Whatsoever the soil, forced by the unmitigated toil of slavery,can yield, is sent home to defray rents, and interest, and agencies, orto give the means of living in a better society. In such a state, it isevident that no spirit of permanent improvement is likely to spring up.Profits will not be invested with a distant view of benefitingposterity. Roads and canals will hardly be built; schools will not befounded; colleges will not be endowed. There will be few fixtures insociety; no principles of utility or of elegance, planted now, with thehope of being developed and expanded hereafter. Profit, immediateprofit, must be the principal active spring in the social system. Theremay be many particular exceptions to these general remarks, but theoutline of the whole is such as is here drawn.

Another most important consequence of such a state of things is, that noidea of independence of the parent country is likely to arise; unless,indeed, it should spring up in a form that would threaten universaldesolation. The inhabitants have no strong attachment to the place whichthey inhabit. The hope of a great portion of them is to leave it; andtheir great desire, to leave it soon. However useful they may be to theparent state, how much soever they may add to the conveniences andluxuries of life, these colonies are not favored spots for the expansionof the human mind, for the progress of permanent improvement, or forsowing the seeds of future independent empire.

Different, indeed, most widely different, from all these instances ofemigration and plantation, were the condition, the purposes, and theprospects of our fathers, when they established their infant colony uponthis spot. They came hither to a land from which they were never toreturn. Hither they had brought, and here they were to fix, their hopes,their attachments, and their objects in life. Some natural tears theyshed, as they left the pleasant abodes of their fathers, and someemotions they suppressed, when the white cliffs of their native country,now seen for the last time, grew dim to their sight. They were acting,however, upon a resolution not to be daunted. With whatever stifledregrets, with whatever occasional hesitation, with whatever appallingapprehensions, which might sometimes arise with force to shake thefirmest purpose, they had yet committed themselves to Heaven and theelements; and a thousand leagues of water soon interposed to separatethem for ever from the region which gave them birth. A new existenceawaited them here; and when they saw these shores, rough, cold,barbarous, and barren, as then they were, they beheld their country.That mixed and strong feeling, which we call love of country, and whichis, in general, never extinguished in the heart of man, grasped andembraced its proper object here. Whatever constitutes _country_, exceptthe earth and the sun, all the moral causes of affection and attachmentwhich operate upon the heart, they had brought with them to their newabode. Here were now their families and friends, their homes, and theirproperty. Before they reached the shore, they had established theelements of a social system,[7] and at a much earlier period had settledtheir forms of religious worship. At the moment of their landing,therefore, they possessed institutions of government, and institutionsof religion: and friends and families, and social and religiousinstitutions, framed by consent, founded on choice and preference, hownearly do these fill up our whole idea of country! The morning thatbeamed on the first night of their repose saw the Pilgrims already _athome_ in their country. There were political institutions, and civilliberty, and religious worship. Poetry has fancied nothing, in thewanderings of heroes, so distinct and characteristic. Here was man,indeed, unprotected, and unprovided for, on the shore of a rude andfearful wilderness; but it was politic, intelligent, and educated man.Every thing was civilized but the physical world. Institutions,containing in substance all that ages had done for human government,were organized in a forest. Cultivated mind was to act on uncultivatednature; and, more than all, a government and a country were to commence,with the very first foundations laid under the divine light of theChristian religion. Happy auspices of a happy futurity! Who would wishthat his country's existence had otherwise begun? Who would desire thepower of going back to the ages of fable? Who would wish for an originobscured in the darkness of antiquity? Who would wish for otheremblazoning of his country's heraldry, or other ornaments of hergenealogy, than to be able to say, that her first existence was withintelligence, her first breath the inspiration of liberty, her firstprinciple the truth of divine religion?

Local attachments and sympathies would ere long spring up in the breastsof our ancestors, endearing to them the place of their refuge. Whatevernatural objects are associated with interesting scenes and high effortsobtain a hold on human feeling, and demand from the heart a sort ofrecognition and regard. This Rock soon became hallowed in the esteem ofthe Pilgrims,[8] and these hills grateful to their sight. Neither theynor their children were again to till the soil of England, nor again totraverse the seas which surround her.[9] But here was a new sea, nowopen to their enterprise, and a new soil, which had not failed torespond gratefully to their laborious industry, and which was alreadyassuming a robe of verdure. Hardly had they provided shelter for theliving, ere they were summoned to erect sepulchres for the dead. Theground had become sacred, by enclosing the remains of some of theircompanions and connections. A parent, a child, a husband, or a wife, hadgone the way of all flesh, and mingled with the dust of New England. Wenaturally look with strong emotions to the spot, though it be awilderness, where the ashes of those we have loved repose. Where theheart has laid down what it loved most, there it is desirous of layingitself down. No sculptured marble, no enduring monument, no honorableinscription, no ever-burning taper that would drive away the darkness ofthe tomb, can soften our sense of the reality of death, and hallow toour feelings the ground which is to cover us, like the consciousnessthat we shall sleep, dust to dust, with the objects of our affections.

In a short time other causes sprung up to bind the Pilgrims with newcords to their chosen land. Children were born, and the hopes of futuregenerations arose, in the spot of their new habitation. The secondgeneration found this the land of their nativity, and saw that they werebound to its fortunes. They beheld their fathers' graves around them,and while they read the memorials of their toils and labors, theyrejoiced in the inheritance which they found bequeathed to them.

Under the influence of these causes, it was to be expected that aninterest and a feeling should arise here, entirely different from theinterest and feeling of mere Englishmen; and all the subsequent historyof the Colonies proves this to have actually and gradually taken place.With a general acknowledgment of the supremacy of the British crown,there was, from the first, a repugnance to an entire submission to thecontrol of British legislation. The Colonies stood upon their charters,which, as they contended, exempted them from the ordinary power of theBritish Parliament, and authorized them to conduct their own concerns bytheir own counsels. They utterly resisted the notion that they were tobe ruled by the mere authority of the government at home, and would notendure even that their own charter governments should be established onthe other side of the Atlantic. It was not a controlling or protectingboard in England, but a government of their own, and existingimmediately within their limits, which could satisfy their wishes. Itwas easy to foresee, what we know also to have happened, that the firstgreat cause of collision and jealousy would be, under the notion ofpolitical economy then and still prevalent in Europe, an attempt on thepart of the mother country to monopolize the trade of the Colonies.Whoever has looked deeply into the causes which produced our Revolutionhas found, if I mistake not, the original principle far back in thisclaim, on the part of England, to monopolize our trade, and a continuedeffort on the part of the Colonies to resist or evade that monopoly; if,indeed, it be not still more just and philosophical to go farther back,and to consider it decided, that an independent government must arisehere, the moment it was ascertained that an English colony, such aslanded in this place, could sustain itself against the dangers whichsurrounded it, and, with other similar establishments, overspread theland with an English population. Accidental causes retarded at times,and at times accelerated, the progress of the controversy. The Colonieswanted strength, and time gave it to them. They required measures ofstrong and palpable injustice, on the part of the mother country, tojustify resistance; the early part of the late king's reign furnishedthem. They needed spirits of high order, of great daring, of longforesight, and of commanding power, to seize the favoring occasion tostrike a blow, which should sever, for all time, the tie of colonialdependence; and these spirits were found, in all the extent which thator any crisis could demand, in Otis, Adams, Hancock, and the otherimmediate authors of our independence.

Still, it is true that, for a century, causes had been in operationtending to prepare things for this great result. In the year 1660 theEnglish Act of Navigation was passed; the first and grand object ofwhich seems to have been, to secure to England the whole trade with herplantations.[10] It was provided by that act, that none but Englishships should transport American produce over the ocean, and that theprincipal articles of that produce should be allowed to be sold only inthe markets of the mother country. Three years afterwards another lawwas passed, which enacted, that such commodities as the Colonies mightwish to purchase should be bought only in the markets of the mothercountry. Severe rules were prescribed to enforce the provisions of theselaws, and heavy penalties imposed on all who should violate them. In thesubsequent years of the same reign, other statutes were enacted tore-enforce these statutes, and other rules prescribed to secure acompliance with these rules. In this manner was the trade to and fromthe Colonies restricted, almost to the exclusive advantage of the parentcountry. But laws, which rendered the interest of a whole peoplesubordinate to that of another people, were not likely to executethemselves, nor was it easy to find many on the spot, who could bedepended upon for carrying them into execution. In fact, these laws weremore or less evaded or resisted, in all the Colonies. To enforce themwas the constant endeavor of the government at home; to prevent or eludetheir operation, the perpetual object here. "The laws of navigation,"says a living British writer, "were nowhere so openly disobeyed andcontemned as in New England." "The people of Massachusetts Bay," headds, "were from the first disposed to act as if independent of themother country, and having a governor and magistrates of their ownchoice, it was difficult to enforce any regulation which came from theEnglish Parliament, adverse to their interests." To provide moreeffectually for the execution of these laws, we know that courts ofadmiralty were afterwards established by the crown, with power to tryrevenue causes, as questions of admiralty, upon the construction givenby the crown lawyers to an act of Parliament; a great departure from theordinary principles of English jurisprudence, but which has beenmaintained, nevertheless, by the force of habit and precedent, and isadopted in our own existing systems of government.

"There lie," says another English writer, whose connection with theBoard of Trade has enabled him to ascertain many facts connected withColonial history, "There lie among the documents in the board of tradeand state-paper office, the most satisfactory proofs, from the epoch ofthe English Revolution in 1688, throughout every reign, and during everyadministration, of the settled purpose of the Colonies to acquire directindependence and positive sovereignty." Perhaps this may be statedsomewhat too strongly; but it cannot be denied, that, from the verynature of the establishments here, and from the general character of themeasures respecting their concerns early adopted and steadily pursued bythe English government, a division of the empire was the natural andnecessary result to which every thing tended.[11]

I have dwelt on this topic, because it seems to me, that the peculiaroriginal character of the New England Colonies, and certain causescoeval with their existence, have had a strong and decided influence onall their subsequent history, and especially on the great event of theRevolution. Whoever would write our history, and would understand andexplain early transactions, should comprehend the nature and force ofthe feeling which I have endeavored to describe. As a son, leaving thehouse of his father for his own, finds, by the order of nature, and thevery law of his being, nearer and dearer objects around which hisaffections circle, while his attachment to the parental roof becomesmoderated, by degrees, to a composed regard and an affectionateremembrance; so our ancestors, leaving their native land, not withoutsome violence to the feelings of nature and affection, yet, in time,found here a new circle of engagements, interests, and affections; afeeling, which more and more encroached upon the old, till an undividedsentiment, _that this was their country_, occupied the heart; andpatriotism, shutting out from its embraces the parent realm, became_local_ to America.

Some retrospect of the century which has now elapsed is among the dutiesof the occasion. It must, however, necessarily be imperfect, to becompressed within the limits of a single discourse. I shall contentmyself, therefore, with taking notice of a few of the leading and mostimportant occurrences which have distinguished the period.

When the first century closed, the progress of the country appeared tohave been considerable; notwithstanding that, in comparison with itssubsequent advancement, it now seems otherwise. A broad and lastingfoundation had been laid; excellent institutions had been established;many of the prejudices of former times had been removed; a more liberaland catholic spirit on subjects of religious concern had begun to extenditself, and many things conspired to give promise of increasing futureprosperity. Great men had arisen in public life, and the liberalprofessions. The Mathers, father and son, were then sinking low in thewestern horizon; Leverett, the learned, the accomplished, the excellentLeverett, was about to withdraw his brilliant and useful light. InPemberton great hopes had been suddenly extinguished, but Prince andColman were in our sky; and along the east had begun to flash thecrepuscular light of a great luminary which was about to appear, andwhich was to stamp the age with his own name, as the age of Franklin.

The bloody Indian wars, which harassed the people for a part of thefirst century; the restrictions on the trade of the Colonies, added tothe discouragements inherently belonging to all forms of colonialgovernment; the distance from Europe, and the small hope of immediateprofit to adventurers, are among the causes which had contributed toretard the progress of population. Perhaps it may be added, also, thatduring the period of the civil wars in England, and the reign ofCromwell, many persons, whose religious opinions and religious tempermight, under other circumstances, have induced them to join the NewEngland colonists, found reasons to remain in England; either on accountof active occupation in the scenes which were passing, or of ananticipation of the enjoyment, in their own country, of a form ofgovernment, civil and religious, accommodated to their views andprinciples. The violent measures, too, pursued against the Colonies inthe reign of Charles the Second, the mockery of a trial, and theforfeiture of the charters, were serious evils. And during the openviolences of the short reign of James the Second, and the tyranny ofAndros, as the venerable historian of Connecticut observes, "All themotives to great actions, to industry, economy, enterprise, wealth, andpopulation, were in a manner annihilated. A general inactivity andlanguishment pervaded the public body. Liberty, property, and everything which ought to be dear to men, every day grew more and moreinsecure."

With the Revolution in England, a better prospect had opened on thiscountry, as well as on that. The joy had been as great at that event,and far more universal, in New than in Old England. A new charter hadbeen granted to Massachusetts, which, although it did not confirm to herinhabitants all their former privileges, yet relieved them from greatevils and embarrassments, and promised future security. More than all,perhaps, the Revolution in England had done good to the general cause ofliberty and justice. A blow had been struck in favor of the rights andliberties, not of England alone, but of descendants and kinsmen ofEngland all over the world. Great political truths had been established.The champions of liberty had been successful in a fearful and perilousconflict. Somers, and Cavendish, and Jekyl, and Howard, had triumphed inone of the most noble causes ever undertaken by men. A revolution hadbeen made upon principle. A monarch had been dethroned for violating theoriginal compact between king and people. The rights of the people topartake in the government, and to limit the monarch by fundamental rulesof government, had been maintained; and however unjust the government ofEngland might afterwards be towards other governments or towards hercolonies, she had ceased to be governed herself by the arbitrary maximsof the Stuarts.

New England had submitted to the violence of James the Second not longerthan Old England. Not only was it reserved to Massachusetts, that on hersoil should be acted the first scene of that great revolutionary drama,which was to take place near a century afterwards, but the EnglishRevolution itself, as far as the Colonies were concerned, commenced inBoston. The seizure and imprisonment of Andros, in April, 1689, wereacts of direct and forcible resistance to the authority of James theSecond. The pulse of liberty beat as high in the extremities as at theheart. The vigorous feeling of the Colony burst out before it was knownhow the parent country would finally conduct herself. The king'srepresentative, Sir Edmund Andros, was a prisoner in the castle atBoston, before it was or could be known that the king himself had ceasedto exercise his full dominion on the English throne.

Before it was known here whether the invasion of the Prince of Orangewould or could prove successful, as soon as it was known that it hadbeen undertaken, the people of Massachusetts, at the imminent hazard oftheir lives and fortunes, had accomplished the Revolution as far asrespected themselves. It is probable that, reasoning on generalprinciples and the known attachment of the English people to theirconstitution and liberties, and their deep and fixed dislike of theking's religion and politics, the people of New England expected acatastrophe fatal to the power of the reigning prince. Yet it wasneither certain enough, nor near enough, to come to their aid againstthe authority of the crown, in that crisis which had arrived, and inwhich they trusted to put themselves, relying on God and their owncourage. There were spirits in Massachusetts congenial with the spiritsof the distinguished friends of the Revolution in England. There werethose who were fit to associate with the boldest asserters of civilliberty; and Mather himself, then in England, was not unworthy to beranked with those sons of the Church, whose firmness and spirit inresisting kingly encroachments in matters of religion, entitled them tothe gratitude of their own and succeeding ages.

The second century opened upon New England under circumstances whichevinced that much had already been accomplished, and that still betterprospects and brighter hopes were before her. She had laid, deep andstrong, the foundations of her society. Her religious principles werefirm, and her moral habits exemplary. Her public schools had begun todiffuse widely the elements of knowledge; and the College, under theexcellent and acceptable administration of Leverett, had been raised toa high degree of credit and usefulness.

The commercial character of the country, notwithstanding alldiscouragements, had begun to display itself, and _five hundredvessels_, then belonging to Massachusetts, placed her, in relation tocommerce, thus early at the head of the Colonies. An author who wrotevery near the close of the first century says:--"New England is almostdeserving that _noble name_, so mightily hath it increased; and from asmall settlement at first, is now become a _very populous_ and_flourishing_ government. The _capital city_, Boston, is a place of_great wealth and trade_; and by much the largest of any in the Englishempire of America; and not exceeded but by few cities, perhaps two orthree, in all the American world."

But if our ancestors at the close of the first century could look backwith joy and even admiration, at the progress of the country, whatemotions must we not feel, when, from the point on which we stand, wealso look back and run along the events of the century which has nowclosed! The country which then, as we have seen, was thought deservingof a "noble name,"--which then had "mightily increased," and become"very populous,"--what was it, in comparison with what our eyes beholdit? At that period, a very great proportion of its inhabitants lived inthe eastern section of Massachusetts proper, and in Plymouth Colony. InConnecticut, there were towns along the coast, some of them respectable,but in the interior all was a wilderness beyond Hartford. On ConnecticutRiver, settlements had proceeded as far up as Deerfield, and Fort Dummerhad been built near where is now the south line of New Hampshire. In NewHampshire no settlement was then begun thirty miles from the mouth ofPiscataqua River, and in what is now Maine the inhabitants were confinedto the coast. The aggregate of the whole population of New England didnot exceed one hundred and sixty thousand. Its present amount (1820) isprobably one million seven hundred thousand. Instead of being confinedto its former limits, her population has rolled backward, and filled upthe spaces included within her actual local boundaries. Not this only,but it has overflowed those boundaries, and the waves of emigration havepressed farther and farther toward the West. The Alleghany has notchecked it; the banks of the Ohio have been covered with it. New Englandfarms, houses, villages, and churches spread over and adorn the immenseextent from the Ohio to Lake Erie, and stretch along from the Alleghanyonwards, beyond the Miamis, and toward the Falls of St. Anthony. Twothousand miles westward from the rock where their fathers landed, maynow be found the sons of the Pilgrims, cultivating smiling fields,rearing towns and villages, and cherishing, we trust, the patrimonialblessings of wise institutions, of liberty, and religion. The world hasseen nothing like this. Regions large enough to be empires, and which,half a century ago, were known only as remote and unexploredwildernesses, are now teeming with population, and prosperous in all thegreat concerns of life; in good governments, the means of subsistence,and social happiness. It may be safely asserted, that there are now morethan a million of people, descendants of New England ancestry, living,free and happy, in regions which scarce sixty years ago were tracts ofunpenetrated forest. Nor do rivers, or mountains, or seas resist theprogress of industry and enterprise. Erelong, the sons of the Pilgrimswill be on the shores of the Pacific.[12] The imagination hardly keepspace with the progress of population, improvement, and civilization.

It is now five-and-forty years since the growth and rising glory ofAmerica were portrayed in the English Parliament, with inimitablebeauty, by the most consummate orator of modern times. Going backsomewhat more than half a century, and describing our progress asforeseen from that point by his amiable friend Lord Bathurst, thenliving, he spoke of the wonderful progress which America had made duringthe period of a single human life. There is no American heart, Iimagine, that does not glow, both with conscious, patriotic pride, andadmiration for one of the happiest efforts of eloquence, so often as thevision of "that little speck, scarce visible in the mass of nationalinterest, a small seminal principle, rather than a formed body," and theprogress of its astonishing development and growth, are recalled to therecollection. But a stronger feeling might be produced, if we were ableto take up this prophetic description where he left it, and, placingourselves at the point of time in which he was speaking, to set forthwith equal felicity the subsequent progress of the country. There is yetamong the living a most distinguished and venerable name, a descendantof the Pilgrims; one who has been attended through life by a great andfortunate genius; a man illustrious by his own great merits, and favoredof Heaven in the long continuation of his years.[13] The time when theEnglish orator was thus speaking of America preceded but by a few daysthe actual opening of the revolutionary drama at Lexington. He to whom Ihave alluded, then at the age of forty, was among the most zealous andable defenders of the violated rights of his country. He seemed alreadyto have filled a full measure of public service, and attained anhonorable fame. The moment was full of difficulty and danger, and bigwith events of immeasurable importance. The country was on the verybrink of a civil war, of which no man could foretell the duration or theresult. Something more than a courageous hope, or characteristic ardor,would have been necessary to impress the glorious prospect on hisbelief, if, at that moment, before the sound of the first shock ofactual war had reached his ears, some attendant spirit had opened to himthe vision of the future;--if it had said to him, "The blow is struck,and America is severed from England for ever!"--if it had informed him,that he himself, during the next annual revolution of the sun, shouldput his own hand to the great instrument of independence, and write hisname where all nations should behold it and all time should not effaceit; that erelong he himself should maintain the interests and representthe sovereignty of his newborn country in the proudest courts of Europe;that he should one day exercise her supreme magistracy; that he shouldyet live to behold ten millions of fellow-citizens paying him the homageof their deepest gratitude and kindest affections; that he should seedistinguished talent and high public trust resting where his namerested; that he should even see with his own unclouded eyes the close ofthe second century of New England, who had begun life almost with itscommencement, and lived through nearly half the whole history of hiscountry; and that on the morning of this auspicious day he should befound in the political councils of his native State, revising, by thelight of experience, that system of government which forty years beforehe had assisted to frame and establish; and, great and happy as heshould then behold his country, there should be nothing in prospect tocloud the scene, nothing to check the ardor of that confident andpatriotic hope which should glow in his bosom to the end of his longprotracted and happy life.

It would far exceed the limits of this discourse even to mention theprincipal events in the civil and political history of New Englandduring the century; the more so, as for the last half of the period thathistory has, most happily, been closely interwoven with the generalhistory of the United States. New England bore an honorable part in thewars which took place between England and France. The capture ofLouisburg gave her a character for military achievement; and in the warwhich terminated with the peace of 1763, her exertions on the frontierswore of most essential service, as well to the mother country as to allthe Colonies.

In New England the war of the Revolution commenced. I address those whoremember the memorable 19th of April, 1775; who shortly after saw theburning spires of Charlestown; who beheld the deeds of Prescott, andheard the voice of Putnam amidst the storm of war, and saw the generousWarren fall, the first distinguished victim in the cause of liberty. Itwould be superfluous to say, that no portion of the country did morethan the States of New England to bring the Revolutionary struggle to asuccessful issue. It is scarcely less to her credit, that she saw earlythe necessity of a closer union of the States, and gave an efficient andindispensable aid to the establishment and organization of the Federalgovernment.

Perhaps we might safely say, that a new spirit and a new excitementbegan to exist here about the middle of the last century. To whatevercauses it may be imputed, there seems then to have commenced a morerapid improvement. The Colonies had attracted more of the attention ofthe mother country, and some renown in arms had been acquired. LordChatham was the first English minister who attached high importance tothese possessions of the crown, and who foresaw any thing of theirfuture growth and extension. His opinion was, that the great rival ofEngland was chiefly to be feared as a maritime and commercial power, andto drive her out of North America and deprive her of her West Indianpossessions was a leading object in his policy. He dwelt often on thefisheries, as nurseries for British seamen, and the colonial trade, asfurnishing them employment. The war, conducted by him with so muchvigor, terminated in a peace, by which Canada was ceded to England. Theeffect of this was immediately visible in the New England Colonies; for,the fear of Indian hostilities on the frontiers being now happilyremoved, settlements went on with an activity before that timealtogether unprecedented, and public affairs wore a new and encouragingaspect. Shortly after this fortunate termination of the French war, theinteresting topics connected with the taxation of America by the BritishParliament began to be discussed, and the attention and all thefaculties of the people drawn towards them. There is perhaps no portionof our history more full of interest than the period from 1760 to theactual commencement of the war. The progress of opinion in this period,though less known, is not less important than the progress of armsafterwards. Nothing deserves more consideration than those events anddiscussions which affected the public sentiment and settled theRevolution in men's minds, before hostilities openly broke out.

Internal improvement followed the establishment and prosperouscommencement of the present government. More has been done for roads,canals, and other public works, within the last thirty years, than inall our former history. In the first of these particulars, few countriesexcel the New England States. The astonishing increase of theirnavigation and trade is known to every one, and now belongs to thehistory of our national wealth.

We may flatter ourselves, too, that literature and taste have not beenstationary, and that some advancement has been made in the elegant, aswell as in the useful arts.

The nature and constitution of society and government in this countryare interesting topics, to which I would devote what remains of the timeallowed to this occasion. Of our system of government the first thing tobe said is, that it is really and practically a free system. Itoriginates entirely with the people, and rests on no other foundationthan their assent. To judge of its actual operation, it is not enough tolook merely at the form of its construction. The practical character ofgovernment depends often on a variety of considerations, besides theabstract frame of its constitutional organization. Among these are thecondition and tenure of property; the laws regulating its alienation anddescent; the presence or absence of a military power; an armed orunarmed yeomanry; the spirit of the age, and the degree of generalintelligence. In these respects it cannot be denied that thecircumstances of this country are most favorable to the hope ofmaintaining the government of a great nation on principles entirelypopular. In the absence of military power, the nature of government mustessentially depend on the manner in which property is holden anddistributed. There is a natural influence belonging to property, whetherit exists in many hands or few; and it is on the rights of property thatboth despotism and unrestrained popular violence ordinarily commencetheir attacks. Our ancestors began their system of government here undera condition of comparative equality in regard to wealth, and their earlylaws were of a nature to favor and continue this equality.

A republican form of government rests not more on politicalconstitutions, than on those laws which regulate the descent andtransmission of property. Governments like ours could not have beenmaintained, where property was holden according to the principles of thefeudal system; nor, on the other hand, could the feudal constitutionpossibly exist with us. Our New England ancestors brought hither nogreat capitals from Europe; and if they had, there was nothingproductive in which they could have been invested. They left behind themthe whole feudal policy of the other continent. They broke away at oncefrom the system of military service established in the Dark Ages, andwhich continues, down even to the present time, more or less to affectthe condition of property all over Europe. They came to a new country.There were, as yet, no lands yielding rent, and no tenants renderingservice. The whole soil was unreclaimed from barbarism. They werethemselves, either from their original condition, or from the necessityof their common interest, nearly on a general level in respect toproperty. Their situation demanded a parcelling out and division of thelands, and it may be fairly said, that this necessary act _fixed thefuture frame and form of their government_. The character of theirpolitical institutions was determined by the fundamental laws respectingproperty. The laws rendered estates divisible among sons and daughters.The right of primogeniture, at first limited and curtailed, wasafterwards abolished. The property was all freehold. The entailment ofestates, long trusts, and the other processes for fettering and tying upinheritances, were not applicable to the condition of society, andseldom made use of. On the contrary, alienation of the land was everyway facilitated, even to the subjecting of it to every species of debt.The establishment of public registries, and the simplicity of our formsof conveyance, have greatly facilitated the change of real estate fromone proprietor to another. The consequence of all these causes has beena great subdivision of the soil, and a great equality of condition; thetrue basis, most certainly, of a popular government. "If the people,"says Harrington, "hold three parts in four of the territory, it is plainthere can neither be any single person nor nobility able to dispute thegovernment with them; in this case, therefore, _except force beinterposed_, they govern themselves."

The history of other nations may teach us how favorable to publicliberty are the division of the soil into small freeholds, and a systemof laws, of which the tendency is, without violence or injustice, toproduce and to preserve a degree of equality of property. It has beenestimated, if I mistake not, that about the time of Henry the Seventhfour fifths of the land in England was holden by the great barons andecclesiastics. The effects of a growing commerce soon afterwards beganto break in on this state of things, and before the Revolution, in 1688,a vast change had been wrought. It may be thought probable, that, forthe last half-century, the process of subdivision in England has beenretarded, if not reversed; that the great weight of taxation hascompelled many of the lesser freeholders to dispose of their estates,and to seek employment in the army and navy, in the professions of civillife, in commerce, or in the colonies. The effect of this on the Britishconstitution cannot but be most unfavorable. A few large estates growlarger; but the number of those who have no estates also increases; andthere may be danger, lest the inequality of property become so great,that those who possess it may be dispossessed by force; in other words,that the government may be overturned.

A most interesting experiment of the effect of a subdivision of propertyon government is now making in France. It is understood, that the lawregulating the transmission of property in that country, now divides it,real and personal, among all the children equally, both sons anddaughters; and that there is, also, a very great restraint on the powerof making dispositions of property by will. It has been supposed, thatthe effects of this might probably be, in time, to break up the soilinto such small subdivisions, that the proprietors would be too poor toresist the encroachments of executive power. I think far otherwise. Whatis lost in individual wealth will be more than gained in numbers, inintelligence, and in a sympathy of sentiment. If, indeed, only one or afew landholders were to resist the crown, like the barons of England,they must, of course, be great and powerful landholders, with multitudesof retainers, to promise success. But if the proprietors of a givenextent of territory are summoned to resistance, there is no reason tobelieve that such resistance would be less forcible, or less successful,because the number of such proprietors happened to be great. Each wouldperceive his own importance, and his own interest, and would feel thatnatural elevation of character which the consciousness of propertyinspires. A common sentiment would unite all, and numbers would not onlyadd strength, but excite enthusiasm. It is true, that France possessesa vast military force, under the direction of an hereditary executivegovernment; and military power, it is possible, may overthrow anygovernment. It is in vain, however, in this period of the world, to lookfor security against military power to the arm of the great landholders.That notion is derived from a state of things long since past; a statein which a feudal baron, with his retainers, might stand against thesovereign and his retainers, himself but the greatest baron. But atpresent, what could the richest landholder do, against one regiment ofdisciplined troops? Other securities, therefore, against the prevalenceof military power must be provided. Happily for us, we are not sosituated as that any purpose of national defence requires, ordinarilyand constantly, such a military force as might seriously endanger ourliberties.

In respect, however, to the recent law of succession in France, to whichI have alluded, I would, presumptuously perhaps, hazard a conjecture,that, if the government do not change the law, the law in half a centurywill change the government; and that this change will be, not in favorof the power of the crown, as some European writers have supposed, butagainst it. Those writers only reason upon what they think correctgeneral principles, in relation to this subject. They acknowledge a wantof experience. Here we have had that experience; and we know that amultitude of small proprietors, acting with intelligence, and thatenthusiasm which a common cause inspires, constitute not only aformidable, but an invincible power.[14]

The true principle of a free and popular government would seem to be, soto construct it as to give to all, or at least to a very great majority,an interest in its preservation; to found it, as other things arefounded, on men's interest. The stability of government demands thatthose who desire its continuance should be more powerful than those whodesire its dissolution. This power, of course, is not always to bemeasured by mere numbers. Education, wealth, talents, are all parts andelements of the general aggregate of power; but numbers, nevertheless,constitute ordinarily the most important consideration, unless, indeed,there be _a military force_ in the hands of the few, by which they cancontrol the many. In this country we have actually existing systems ofgovernment, in the maintenance of which, it should seem, a greatmajority, both in numbers and in other means of power and influence,must see their interest. But this state of things is not brought aboutsolely by written political constitutions, or the mere manner oforganizing the government; but also by the laws which regulate thedescent and transmission of property. The freest government, if it couldexist, would not be long acceptable, if the tendency of the laws were tocreate a rapid accumulation of property in few hands, and to render thegreat mass of the population dependent and penniless. In such a case,the popular power would be likely to break in upon the rights ofproperty, or else the influence of property to limit and control theexercise of popular power. Universal suffrage, for example, could notlong exist in a community where there was great inequality of property.The holders of estates would be obliged, in such case, in some way torestrain the right of suffrage, or else such right of suffrage would,before long, divide the property. In the nature of things, those whohave not property, and see their neighbors possess much more than theythink them to need, cannot be favorable to laws made for the protectionof property. When this class becomes numerous, it grows clamorous. Itlooks on property as its prey and plunder, and is naturally ready, atall times, for violence and revolution.

It would seem, then, to be the part of political wisdom to foundgovernment on property; and to establish such distribution of property,by the laws which regulate its transmission and alienation, as tointerest the great majority of society in the support of the government.This is, I imagine, the true theory and the actual practice of ourrepublican institutions. With property divided as we have it, no othergovernment than that of a republic could be maintained, even were wefoolish enough to desire it. There is reason, therefore, to expect along continuance of our system. Party and passion, doubtless, mayprevail at times, and much temporary mischief be done. Even modes andforms may be changed, and perhaps for the worse. But a great revolutionin regard to property must take place, before our governments can bemoved from their republican basis, unless they be violently struck offby military power. The people possess the property, more emphaticallythan it could ever be said of the people of any other country, and theycan have no interest to overturn a government which protects thatproperty by equal laws.

Let it not be supposed, that this state of things possesses too strongtendencies towards the production of a dead and uninteresting level insociety. Such tendencies are sufficiently counteracted by the infinitediversities in the characters and fortunes of individuals. Talent,activity, industry, and enterprise tend at all times to produceinequality and distinction; and there is room still for the accumulationof wealth, with its great advantages, to all reasonable and usefulextent. It has been often urged against the state of society in America,that it furnishes no class of men of fortune and leisure. This may bepartly true, but it is not entirely so, and the evil, if it be one,would affect rather the progress of taste and literature, than thegeneral prosperity of the people. But the promotion of taste andliterature cannot be primary objects of political institutions; and ifthey could, it might be doubted whether, in the long course of things,as much is not gained by a wide diffusion of general knowledge, as islost by diminishing the number of those who are enabled by fortune andleisure to devote themselves exclusively to scientific and literarypursuits. However this may be, it is to be considered that it is thespirit of our system to be equal and general, and if there be particulardisadvantages incident to this, they are far more than counterbalancedby the benefits which weigh against them. The important concerns ofsociety are generally conducted, in all countries, by the men ofbusiness and practical ability; and even in matters of taste andliterature, the advantages of mere leisure are liable to be overrated.If there exist adequate means of education and a love of letters beexcited, that love will find its way to the object of its desire,through the crowd and pressure of the most busy society.

Connected with this division of property, and the consequentparticipation of the great mass of people in its possession andenjoyments, is the system of representation, which is admirablyaccommodated to our condition, better understood among us, and morefamiliarly and extensively practised, in the higher and in the lowerdepartments of government, than it has been by any other people. Greatfacility has been given to this in New England by the early division ofthe country into townships or small districts, in which all concerns oflocal police are regulated, and in which representatives to thelegislature are elected. Nothing can exceed the utility of these littlebodies. They are so many councils or parliaments, in which commoninterests are discussed, and useful knowledge acquired and communicated.

The division of governments into departments, and the division, again,of the legislative department into two chambers, are essentialprovisions in our system. This last, although not new in itself, yetseems to be new in its application to governments wholly popular. TheGrecian republics, it is plain, knew nothing of it; and in Rome, thecheck and balance of legislative power, such as it was, lay between thepeople and the senate. Indeed, few things are more difficult than toascertain accurately the true nature and construction of the Romancommonwealth. The relative power of the senate and the people, of theconsuls and the tribunes, appears not to have been at all times thesame, nor at any time accurately defined or strictly observed. Cicero,indeed, describes to us an admirable arrangement of political power, anda balance of the constitution, in that beautiful passage, in which hecompares the democracies of Greece with the Roman commonwealth. "O morempreclarum, disciplinamque, quam a majoribus accepimus, si quidemteneremus! sed nescio quo pacto jam de manibus elabitur. Nullam enimilli nostri sapientissimi et sanctissimi viri vim concionis essevoluerunt, quae scisseret plebs, aut quae populus juberet; summotaconcione, distributis partibus, tributim et centuriatim descriptisordinibus, classibus, aetatibus, auditis auctoribus, re multos diespromulgata et cognita, juberi vetarique voluerunt. Graecorum autem totaerespublicae sedentis concionis temeritate administrantur."[15]

But at what time this wise system existed in this perfection at Rome, noproofs remain to show. Her constitution, originally framed for amonarchy, never seemed to be adjusted in its several parts after theexpulsion of the kings. Liberty there was, but it was a disputatious, anuncertain, an ill-secured liberty. The patrician and plebeian orders,instead of being matched and joined, each in its just place andproportion, to sustain the fabric of the state, were rather like hostilepowers, in perpetual conflict. With us, an attempt has been made, and sofar not without success, to divide representation into chambers, and, bydifference of age, character, qualification, or mode of election, toestablish salutary checks, in governments altogether elective.

Having detained you so long with these observations, I must yet advertto another most interesting topic,--the Free Schools. In thisparticular, New England may be allowed to claim, I think, a merit of apeculiar character. She early adopted, and has constantly maintained theprinciple, that it is the undoubted right and the bounden duty ofgovernment to provide for the instruction of all youth. That which iselsewhere left to chance or to charity, we secure by law.[16] For thepurpose of public instruction, we hold every man subject to taxation inproportion to his property, and we look not to the question, whether hehimself have, or have not, children to be benefited by the education forwhich he pays. We regard it as a wise and liberal system of police, bywhich property, and life, and the peace of society are secured. We seekto prevent in some measure the extension of the penal code, by inspiringa salutary and conservative principle of virtue and of knowledge in anearly age. We strive to excite a feeling of respectability, and a senseof character, by enlarging the capacity and increasing the sphere ofintellectual enjoyment. By general instruction, we seek, as far aspossible, to purify the whole moral atmosphere; to keep good sentimentsuppermost, and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, aswell as the censures of the law and the denunciations of religion,against immorality and crime. We hope for a security beyond the law, andabove the law, in the prevalence of an enlightened and well-principledmoral sentiment. We hope to continue and prolong the time, when, in thevillages and farm-houses of New England, there may be undisturbed sleepwithin unbarred doors. And knowing that our government rests directly onthe public will, in order that we may preserve it we endeavor to give asafe and proper direction to that public will. We do not, indeed,expect all men to be philosophers or statesmen; but we confidentlytrust, and our expectation of the duration of our system of governmentrests on that trust, that, by the diffusion of general knowledge andgood and virtuous sentiments, the political fabric may be secure, aswell against open violence and overthrow, as against the slow, but sure,undermining of licentiousness.

We know that, at the present time, an attempt is making in the EnglishParliament to provide by law for the education of the poor, and that agentleman of distinguished character (Mr. Brougham) has taken the leadin presenting a plan to government for carrying that purpose intoeffect. And yet, although the representatives of the three kingdomslistened to him with astonishment as well as delight, we hear noprinciples with which we ourselves have not been familiar from youth; wesee nothing in the plan but an approach towards that system which hasbeen established in New England for more than a century and a half. Itis said that in England not more than _one child in fifteen_ possessesthe means of being taught to read and write; in Wales, _one in twenty_;in France, until lately, when some improvement was made, not more than_one in thirty-five_. Now, it is hardly too strong to say, that in NewEngland _every child possesses_ such means. It would be difficult tofind an instance to the contrary, unless where it should be owing to thenegligence of the parent; and, in truth, the means are actually used andenjoyed by nearly every one. A youth of fifteen, of either sex, whocannot both read and write, is very seldom to be found. Who can makethis comparison, or contemplate this spectacle, without delight and afeeling of just pride? Does any history show property more beneficentlyapplied? Did any government ever subject the property of those who haveestates to a burden, for a purpose more favorable to the poor, or moreuseful to the whole community?

A conviction of the importance of public instruction was one of theearliest sentiments of our ancestors. No lawgiver of ancient or moderntimes has expressed more just opinions, or adopted wiser measures, thanthe early records of the Colony of Plymouth show to have prevailed here.Assembled on this very spot, a hundred and fifty-three years ago, thelegislature of this Colony declared, "Forasmuch as the maintenance ofgood literature doth much tend to the advancement of the weal andflourishing state of societies and republics, this Court doth thereforeorder, that in whatever township in this government, consisting of fiftyfamilies or upwards, any meet man shall be obtained to teach a grammarschool, such township shall allow at least twelve pounds, to be raisedby rate on all the inhabitants."

Having provided that all youth should be instructed in the elements oflearning by the institution of free schools, our ancestors had yetanother duty to perform. Men were to be educated for the professions andthe public. For this purpose they founded the University, and withincredible zeal and perseverance they cherished and supported it,through all trials and discouragements.[17] On the subject of theUniversity, it is not possible for a son of New England to think withoutpleasure, or to speak without emotion. Nothing confers more honor on theState where it is established, or more utility on the country at large.A respectable university is an establishment which must be the work oftime. If pecuniary means were not wanting, no new institution couldpossess character and respectability at once. We owe deep obligation toour ancestors, who began, almost on the moment of their arrival, thework of building up this institution.

Although established in a different government, the Colony of Plymouthmanifested warm friendship for Harvard College. At an early period, itsgovernment took measures to promote a general subscription throughoutall the towns in this Colony, in aid of its small funds. Other collegeswere subsequently founded and endowed, in other places, as the abilityof the people allowed; and we may flatter ourselves, that the means ofeducation at present enjoyed in New England are not only adequate to thediffusion of the elements of knowledge among all classes, but sufficientalso for respectable attainments in literature and the sciences.

Lastly, our ancestors established their system of government on moralityand religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely betrusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor anygovernment be secure which is not supported by moral habits. Livingunder the heavenly light of revelation, they hoped to find all thesocial dispositions, all the duties which men owe to each other and tosociety, enforced and performed. Whatever makes men good Christians,makes them good citizens. Our fathers came here to enjoy their religionfree and unmolested; and, at the end of two centuries, there is nothingupon which we can pronounce more confidently, nothing of which we canexpress a more deep and earnest conviction, than of the inestimableimportance of that religion to man, both in regard to this life and thatwhich is to come.

If the blessings of our political and social condition have not been toohighly estimated, we cannot well overrate the responsibility and dutywhich they impose upon us. We hold these institutions of government,religion, and learning, to be transmitted, as well as enjoyed. We are inthe line of conveyance, through which whatever has been obtained by thespirit and efforts of our ancestors is to be communicated to ourchildren.

We are bound to maintain public liberty, and, by the example of our ownsystems, to convince the world that order and law, religion andmorality, the rights of conscience, the rights of persons, and therights of property, may all be preserved and secured, in the mostperfect manner, by a government entirely and purely elective. If we failin this, our disaster will be signal, and will furnish an argument,stronger than has yet been found, in support of those opinions whichmaintain that government can rest safely on nothing but power andcoercion. As far as experience may show errors in our establishments, weare bound to correct them; and if any practices exist contrary to theprinciples of justice and humanity within the reach of our laws or ourinfluence, we are inexcusable if we do not exert ourselves to restrainand abolish them.

I deem it my duty on this occasion to suggest, that the land is not yetwholly free from the contamination of a traffic, at which every feelingof humanity must for ever revolt,--I mean the African slave-trade.[18]Neither public sentiment, nor the law, has hitherto been able entirelyto put an end to this odious and abominable trade. At the moment whenGod in his mercy has blessed the Christian world with a universal peace,there is reason to fear, that, to the disgrace of the Christian name andcharacter, new efforts are making for the extension of this trade bysubjects and citizens of Christian states, in whose hearts there dwellno sentiments of humanity or of justice, and over whom neither the fearof God nor the fear of man exercises a control. In the sight of our law,the African slave-trader is a pirate and a felon; and in the sight ofHeaven, an offender far beyond the ordinary depth of human guilt. Thereis no brighter page of our history, than that which records the measureswhich have been adopted by the government at an early day, and atdifferent times since, for the suppression of this traffic; and I wouldcall on all the true sons of New England to co-operate with the laws ofman, and the justice of Heaven. If there be, within the extent of ourknowledge or influence, any participation in this traffic, let uspledge ourselves here, upon the rock of Plymouth, to extirpate anddestroy it. It is not fit that the land of the Pilgrims should bear theshame longer. I hear the sound of the hammer, I see the smoke of thefurnaces where manacles and fetters are still forged for human limbs. Isee the visages of those who by stealth and at midnight labor in thiswork of hell, foul and dark, as may become the artificers of suchinstruments of misery and torture. Let that spot be purified, or let itcease to be of New England. Let it be purified, or let it be set asidefrom the Christian world; let it be put out of the circle of humansympathies and human regards, and let civilized man henceforth have nocommunion with it.

I would invoke those who fill the seats of justice, and all who ministerat her altar, that they execute the wholesome and necessary severity ofthe law. I invoke the ministers of our religion, that they proclaim itsdenunciation of these crimes, and add its solemn sanctions to theauthority of human laws. If the pulpit be silent whenever or whereverthere may be a sinner bloody with this guilt within the hearing of itsvoice, the pulpit is false to its trust. I call on the fair merchant,who has reaped his harvest upon the seas, that he assist in scourgingfrom those seas the worst pirates that ever infested them. That ocean,which seems to wave with a gentle magnificence to waft the burden of anhonest commerce, and to roll along its treasures with a consciouspride,--that ocean, which hardy industry regards, even when the windshave ruffled its surface, as a field of grateful toil,--what is it tothe victim of this oppression, when he is brought to its shores, andlooks forth upon it, for the first time, loaded with chains, andbleeding with stripes? What is it to him but a wide-spread prospect ofsuffering, anguish, and death? Nor do the skies smile longer, nor is theair longer fragrant to him. The sun is cast down from heaven. An inhumanand accursed traffic has cut him off in his manhood, or in his youth,from every enjoyment belonging to his being, and every blessing whichhis Creator intended for him.

The Christian communities send forth their emissaries of religion andletters, who stop, here and there, along the coast of the vast continentof Africa, and with painful and tedious efforts make some almostimperceptible progress in the communication of knowledge, and in thegeneral improvement of the natives who are immediately about them. Notthus slow and imperceptible is the transmission of the vices and badpassions which the subjects of Christian states carry to the land. Theslave-trade having touched the coast, its influence and its evilsspread, like a pestilence, over the whole continent, making savage warsmore savage and more frequent, and adding new and fierce passions to thecontests of barbarians.

I pursue this topic no further, except again to say, that allChristendom, being now blessed with peace, is bound by every thing whichbelongs to its character, and to the character of the present age, toput a stop to this inhuman and disgraceful traffic.

We are bound, not only to maintain the general principles of publicliberty, but to support also those existing forms of government whichhave so well secured its enjoyment, and so highly promoted the publicprosperity. It is now more than thirty years that these States have beenunited under the Federal Constitution, and whatever fortune may awaitthem hereafter, it is impossible that this period of their historyshould not be regarded as distinguished by signal prosperity andsuccess. They must be sanguine indeed, who can hope for benefit fromchange. Whatever division of the public judgment may have existed inrelation to particular measures of the government, all must agree, oneshould think, in the opinion, that in its general course it has beeneminently productive of public happiness. Its most ardent friends couldnot well have hoped from it more than it has accomplished; and those whodisbelieved or doubted ought to feel less concern about predictionswhich the event has not verified, than pleasure in the good which hasbeen obtained. Whoever shall hereafter write this part of our history,although he may see occasional errors or defects, will be able to recordno great failure in the ends and objects of government. Still less willhe be able to record any series of lawless and despotic acts, or anysuccessful usurpation. His page will contain no exhibition of provincesdepopulated, of civil authority habitually trampled down by militarypower, or of a community crushed by the burden of taxation. He willspeak, rather, of public liberty protected, and public happinessadvanced; of increased revenue, and population augmented beyond allexample; of the growth of commerce, manufactures, and the arts; and ofthat happy condition, in which the restraint and coercion of governmentare almost invisible and imperceptible, and its influence felt only inthe benefits which it confers. We can entertain no better wish for ourcountry, than that this government may be preserved; nor have a clearerduty than to maintain and support it in the full exercise of all itsjust constitutional powers.

The cause of science and literature also imposes upon us an importantand delicate trust. The wealth and population of the country are now sofar advanced, as to authorize the expectation of a correct literatureand a well formed taste, as well as respectable progress in the abstrusesciences. The country has risen from a state of colonial subjection; ithas established an independent government, and is now in the undisturbedenjoyment of peace and political security. The elements of knowledge areuniversally diffused, and the reading portion of the community is large.Let us hope that the present may be an auspicious era of literature. If,almost on the day of their landing, our ancestors founded schools andendowed colleges, what obligations do not rest upon us, living undercircumstances so much more favorable both for providing and for usingthe means of education? Literature becomes free institutions. It is thegraceful ornament of civil liberty, and a happy restraint on theasperities which political controversies sometimes occasion. Just tasteis not only an embellishment of society, but it rises almost to the rankof the virtues, and diffuses positive good throughout the whole extentof its influence. There is a connection between right feeling and rightprinciples, and truth in taste is allied with truth in morality. Withnothing in our past history to discourage us, and with something in ourpresent condition and prospects to animate us, let us hope, that, as itis our fortune to live in an age when we may behold a wonderfuladvancement of the country in all its other great interests, we may seealso equal progress and success attend the cause of letters.

Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Ourfathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christianreligion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. Theysought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society,and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil,political, or literary. Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend thisinfluence still more widely; in the full conviction, that that is thehappiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild andpeaceful spirit of Christianity.

The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion will soon bepassed. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return.They are in the distant regions of futurity, they exist only in theall-creating power of God, who shall stand here a hundred years hence,to trace, through us, their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, aswe have now surveyed, the progress of their country, during the lapse ofa century. We would anticipate their concurrence with us in oursentiments of deep regard for our common ancestors. We would anticipateand partake the pleasure with which they will then recount the steps ofNew England's advancement. On the morning of that day, although it willnot disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclamation and gratitude,commencing on the Rock of Plymouth, shall be transmitted throughmillions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmursof the Pacific seas.

We would leave for the consideration of those who shall then occupy ourplaces, some proof that we hold the blessings transmitted from ourfathers in just estimation; some proof of our attachment to the cause ofgood government, and of civil and religious liberty; some proof of asincere and ardent desire to promote every thing which may enlarge theunderstandings and improve the hearts of men. And when, from the longdistance of a hundred years, they shall look back upon us, they shallknow, at least, that we possessed affections, which, running backwardand warming with gratitude for what our ancestors have done for ourhappiness, run forward also to our posterity, and meet them with cordialsalutation, ere yet they have arrived on the shore of being.

Advance, then, ye future generations! We would hail you, as you rise inyour long succession, to fill the places which we now fill, and to tastethe blessings of existence where we are passing, and soon shall havepassed, our own human duration. We bid you welcome to this pleasant landof the fathers. We bid you welcome to the healthful skies and theverdant fields of New England. We greet your accession to the greatinheritance which we have enjoyed. We welcome you to the blessings ofgood government and religious liberty. We welcome you to the treasuresof science and the delights of learning. We welcome you to thetranscendent sweets of domestic life, to the happiness of kindred, andparents, and children. We welcome you to the immeasurable blessings ofrational existence, the immortal hope of Christianity, and the light ofeverlasting truth!

* * * * *

NOTES.

NOTE A.--PAGE 27.

The allusion in the Discourse is to the large historical painting of theLanding of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, executed by Henry Sargent, Esq., ofBoston, and, with great liberality, presented by him to the PilgrimSociety. It appeared in their hall (of which it forms the chiefornament) for the first time at the celebration of 1824. It representsthe principal personages of the company at the moment of landing, withthe Indian Samoset, who approaches them with a friendly welcome. A verycompetent judge, himself a distinguished artist, the late venerableColonel Trumbull, has pronounced that this painting has great merit. Aninteresting account of it will be found in Dr. Thacher's History ofPlymouth, pp. 249 and 257.

An historical painting, by Robert N. Weir, Esq., of the largest size,representing the embarkation of the Pilgrims from Delft-Haven, inHolland, and executed by order of Congress, fills one of the panels ofthe Rotunda of the Capitol at Washington. The moment chosen by theartist for the action of the picture is that in which the venerablepastor Robinson, with tears, and benedictions, and prayers to Heaven,dismisses the beloved members of his little flock to the perils and thehopes of their great enterprise. The characters of the personagesintroduced are indicated with discrimination and power, and theaccessories of the work marked with much taste and skill. It is apainting of distinguished historical interest and of great artisticmerit.

The "Landing of the Pilgrims" has also been made the subject of a veryinteresting painting by Mr. Flagg, intended to represent the deepreligious feeling which so strikingly characterized the first settlersof New England. With this object in view, the central figure is that ofElder Brewster. It is a picture of cabinet size, and is in possession ofa gentleman of New Haven, descended from Elder Brewster, and of thatname.

NOTE B.--PAGE 45.

As the opinion of contemporaneous thinkers on this important subjectcannot fail to interest the general reader, it is deemed proper toinsert here the following extract from a letter, written in 1849, toshow how powerfully the truths uttered in 1820, in the spirit ofprophecy, as it were, impressed themselves upon certain minds, and howclosely the verification of the prediction has been watched.

"I do not remember any political prophecy, founded on the spirit of a wide and far-reaching statesmanship, that has been so remarkably fulfilled as the one made by Mr. Webster, in his Discourse delivered at Plymouth in 1820, on the effect which the laws of succession to property in France, then in operation, would be likely to produce on the forms and working of the French government. But to understand what he said, and what he foresaw, I must explain a little what had been the course of legislation in France on which his predictions were founded.

"Before the Revolution of 1789, there had been a great accumulation of the landed property of the country, and, indeed, of all its property,--by means of laws of entail, _majorats_, and other legal contrivances,--in the hands of the privileged classes; chiefly in those of the nobility and the clergy. The injury and injustice done by long continued legislation in this direction were obviously great; and it was not, perhaps, unnatural, that the opposite course to that which had brought on the mischief should be deemed the best one to cure it. At any rate, such was the course taken.

"In 1791 a law was passed, preventing any man from having any interest beyond the period of his own life in any of his property, real, personal, or mixed, and distributing all his possessions for him, immediately after his death, among his children, in equal shares, or if he left no children, then among his next of kin, on the same principle. This law, with a slight modification, made under the influence of Robespierre, was in force till 1800. But the period was entirely revolutionary, and probably quite as much property changed hands from violence and the consequences of violence, during the nine years it continued, as was transmitted by the laws that directly controlled its succession.

"With the coming in of Bonaparte, however, there was established a new order of things, which has continued, with little modification, ever since, and has had its full share in working out the great changes in French society which we now witness. A few experiments were first made, and then the great Civil Code, often called the _Code Napoleon_, was adopted. This was in 1804. By this remarkable code, which is still in force, a man, if he has but one child, can give away by his last will, as he pleases, half of his property,--the law insuring the other half to the child; if he has two children, then he can so give away only one third,--the law requiring the other two thirds to be given equally to the two children; if three, then only one fourth under similar conditions; but if he has a greater number, it restricts the rights of the parent more and more, and makes it more and more difficult for him to distribute his property according to his own judgment; the restrictions embarrassing him even in his lifetime.

"The consequences of such laws are, from their nature, very slowly developed. When Mr. Webster spoke in 1820, the French code had been in operation sixteen years, and similar principles had prevailed for nearly a generation. But still its wide results were not even suspected. Those who had treated the subject at all supposed that the tendency was to break up the great estates in France, and make the larger number of the holders of small estates more accessible to the influence of the government, then a limited monarchy, and so render it stronger and more despotic.

"Mr. Webster held a different opinion. He said, 'In respect, however, to the recent law of succession in France, to which I have alluded, _I would, presumptuously perhaps, hazard a conjecture, that, if the government do not change the law, the law in half a century will change the government; and that this change will be, not in favor of the power of the crown, as some European writers have supposed, but against it_. Those writers only reason upon what they think correct general principles, in relation to this subject. They acknowledge a want of experience. Here we have had that experience; and we know that a multitude of small proprietors, acting with intelligence, and that enthusiasm which a common cause inspires, constitute not only a formidable, but an invincible power.'

"In less than six years after Mr. Webster uttered this remarkable prediction, the king of France himself, at the opening of the Legislative Chambers, thus strangely echoed it:--'Legislation ought to provide, by successive improvements, for all the wants of society. The progressive partitioning of landed estates, essentially contrary to the spirit of a monarchical government, would enfeeble the guaranties which the charter has given to my throne and to my subjects. Measures will be proposed to you, gentlemen, to establish the consistency which ought to exist between the political law and the civil law, and to preserve the patrimony of families, without restricting the liberty of disposing of one's property. The preservation of families is connected with, and affords a guaranty to, political stability, which is the first want of states, and which is especially that of France, after so many vicissitudes.'

"Still, the results to which such subdivision and comminution of property tended were not foreseen even in France. The Revolution of 1830 came, and revealed a part of them; for that revolution was made by the influence of men possessing very moderate estates, who believed that the guaranties of a government like that of the elder branch of the Bourbons were not sufficient for their safety. But when the revolution was made, and the younger branch of the Bourbons reigned instead of the elder, the laws for the descent of property continued to be the same, and the subdivision went on as if it were an admitted benefit to society.

"In consequence of this, in 1844 it was found that there were in France at least five millions and a half of families, or about twenty-seven millions of souls, who were proprietary families, and that of these about four millions of families had each less than nine English acres to the family on the average. Of course, a vast majority of these twenty-seven millions of persons, though they might be interested in some small portion of the soil, were really poor, and multitudes of them were dependent.

"Now, therefore, the results began to appear in a practical form. One third of all the rental of France was discovered to be absolutely mortgaged, and another third was swallowed up by other encumbrances, leaving but one third free for the use and benefit of its owners. In other words, a great proportion of the people of France were embarrassed and poor, and a great proportion of the remainder were fast becoming so.

"Such a state of things produced, of course, a wide-spread social uneasiness. Part of this uneasiness was directed against the existing government; another and more formidable portion was directed against _all_ government, and against the very institution of property. The convulsion of 1848 followed; France is still unsettled; and Mr. Webster's prophecy seems still to be in the course of a portentous fulfilment."

In the London Quarterly Review for 1846 there is an interestingdiscussion on so much of the matter as relates to the subdivision ofreal estate for agricultural purposes in France, as far as it had thenadvanced, and from which many of the facts here alluded to are taken.

[Footnote 1: An interesting account of the Rock may be found in Dr.Thacher's History of the Town of Plymouth, pp. 29, 198, 199.]